Rail Baltica: a new chair, familiar governance logic
Latvia has appointed Matīss Paegle (partner at BaltCap) as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of RB Rail.
Paegle comes from an infrastructure investment background and has publicly stated that Rail Baltica will be built, while openly acknowledging that Latvia is currently the weakest link in delivery and must sharply improve project management and decision-making speed.
According to the European Court of Auditors (Special Report 10/2020, status November 2025), the project’s estimated cost has risen to €23.8 bn, with only around one third of the route covered by mature design studies. By 2030, only a single-track first phase is planned; the full project has no implementation timeline.
This is not the first time Latvia has turned to managers from successful regional investment funds to stabilise strategic cross-Baltic projects. In 2024, Andrey Martynov from Invalda INVL joined the supervisory governance of airBaltic, helping to prevent short-term collapse but unable to change a business model shaped by earlier state decisions.
The pattern is clear:
external, investment-grade governance is brought in to stabilise, not to redesign.
The core question for Rail Baltica is no longer whether it will be built, but how costly and manageable it will be for Latvia over the long term. BSM © 2026
Image: photos/photo_181@29-01-2026_19-07-49.jpg